Children's happiness should surely be one of the metrics any Government or society takes most seriously. Now, it's not always easy to quantify happiness or to pinpoint how contentedness manifests itself, but, when patterns develop and take hold, we all have to take notice. Last year, a Cardiff University study was published that had interviewed children in 35 countries across the world. The study asked them about how happy they felt at home, at school, about their future, about themselves, and, in many aspects, Welsh children had some of the lowest scores. The interviews happened long before COVID, and, as Platfform have reminded Members of the Senedd in preparing for today's debate, COVID-19 hit those who were already having the hardest time the hardest. I know that we're all used to hearing politicians talk about research or statistics or findings, and the tendency is that we switch off, but that study—it's the kind of thing should make us all sit up and take notice. We should be stopped in our tracks. Because the findings, regrettably, are not unique. 'The Good Childhood Report 2021' by the Children's Society looks at answers given by children aged 10 to 15 about how happy they are, and the mean happiness scores for how those children feel about life as a whole, their friendships and their appearance were lower than when the survey began in 2009-10. I've been looking at the report, and some of the most painful estimates that can be extrapolated for Welsh children are that an estimated 24,000 children in Wales recorded low happiness at school, and 30,000 said they were unhappy about their appearance.

Now, there are wider societal issues that need to be addressed here—wider than any one Government can handle alone—to do with the emphasis we place on looks, the impact that Instagram and magazines can have on body image and the ways in which bullying can be made worse both on and because of those platforms. There has to be an urgent acknowledgment and plan in place to deal with and tackle those issues, because we're talking here about feelings that are worryingly common for so many children.

But, more widely, what can we do to help children and young people with mental health? Dirprwy Lywydd, our amendment, as has been set out, calls for a network of preventative youth mental health and well-being centres. That help in the community should sit alongside counselling available in schools, so that there's always somewhere trusted that young people can turn to when they just need to chat through their issues, where they feel safe. Now, this chimes with what the Children's Society has called for in terms of open-access hubs offering drop-in support on a self-referral basis. But, Dirprwy Lywydd, what about those children and young people who are in crisis? The children's commissioner has, I know, released a report this week, emphasising the need for crisis care for young people's mental health. She's pointed out that A&E waiting rooms are not appropriate places for young people to have to go when they're in crisis, that we need sanctuaries and dedicated mental health crisis centres for young people, and this resonated. The commissioner said that too often children and young people are expected to fit into rigid pathways that don't always work for them, and face long waiting times.

I said at the beginning of my remarks, Dirprwy Lywydd, that it's not always easy to quantify happiness. Regrettably, it is all too easy, at times, to quantify extreme unhappiness when it results in crisis, queues of people waiting for overstretched services, the metrics of hopelessness stretching ahead of us. I know the Government wants to get this right, I know that the Minister truly does, so alongside the practical need for crisis centres for community hubs, can we please refocus the indicators we use about children's well-being? As well as the external things that we can measure, like attainment, employment and housing, can we pay more heed to what children feel in their heads, how they are coping, what they tell us about what is going on? Can we follow the Children's Society's advice and include those indicators in how surveys are conducted in Wales to inform public policy, yes, and to listen to those children, because that could be the most powerful intervention that we could make?